US President Donald Trump’s executive order tightening rules for voting by mail faced its first major judicial test on Thursday when a federal judge heard arguments from Democratic Party lawyers that it would disenfranchise millions of eligible voters.
During a two-hour hearing in Washington, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols did not rule on Democratic Party leaders’ request that he block the March 31 executive order. He said he would issue a written decision at a later date, adding that he was ‘aware of the time pressure here’.
Trump, a Republican, has for years promoted the false claim that his 2020 election defeat was the result of widespread voter fraud and called for stricter rules for voting by mail ahead of November’s midterm elections, when his party will try to defend its narrow majorities in Congress.
His order directs his administration to compile a list of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and to use federal data to help state election officials verify who is eligible to vote.
It also requires the U.S. Postal Service to deliver ballots only to voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list. States must also preserve election-related records for five years.
Plaintiffs in the litigation include Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and the Democratic National Committee.
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“This case is quite simple on the merits,” Lali Madduri, attorney for the plaintiffs, told Nichols. ‘There is no law that authorizes the commands of the decree we are contesting.’
The Justice Department argued that the litigation is premature because federal agencies have not yet implemented the order.
Nichols, at times, seemed sympathetic to that argument, saying it was not clear at this early stage in the litigation that plaintiffs would be ‘irreparably harmed’ by the federal government compiling data it already has on eligible voters.
‘We have to assume not only that some states will use the list, but … also that the list will be used in a way that harms some of the state’s voters,’ Nichols said.
A similar lawsuit filed by a coalition of Democratic state prosecutors is pending before a federal judge in Boston.
